BANGALORE | By Srikanth Vasuraj | Indian economy needs a push. After a lull of almost 3 years in bringing in reform initiatives, due to political one-upmanship by the opposition parties, we have seen some key reforms passed Parliament in recent months. Whilst these are not expected to produce results overnight, they will become performance benchmarks for whoever forms the government after the 2014 general elections.
MADRID | By Tania Suárez | Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced a discreet upward revision of the GDP for the Spanish General State Budget. Thus, the government raised their growth forecasts from 0.5% to 0.7%.
LONDON | By Cagdas Aksu | The Fed’s dovish surprise in the September FOMC meeting should benefit core peripheral spreads for several reasons. First, we note that even amid all the Fed tapering concerns since May, core periphery spreads versus Germany have behaved very well and never underperformed much, despite the sell-offs seen in other riskier asset classes, such as emerging markets and certain segments of credits markets.
SAO PAULO/ NEW YORK | By Marcus Nunes and Ana Fuentes | Since Larry Summer’s withdrawal, Janet Yellen seems to be the clear candidate to replace Bernanke at the U.S. Fed. However, for Marcus Nunes, the choice is clear: former White House Council of Economic Advisors chair Christina Romer should be the one because she “shows an understanding Bernanke lacks”. Other members of The Corner team are strongly supporting Stanley Fisher. Time for readers to bet (and speculate).
The Corner Team | The deal for Spain’s Telefonica to raise its stake in Telco and control Telecom Italia will be ready before Friday, according to Economía Digital. An operation that prevents Carlos Slim, through America Movil, or American competitor AT&T from taking positions in the Italian market. Telefónica’s peace of mind is worth 324 million euros ($437 million).
The Corner Team | ECB’s President Mario Draghi opened the door to providing more money to eurozone banks in order to keep market interest rates low and ensure the recovery, which finally seems to be picking up. His comments have been like fresh air to Europe’s banks, which face another stress test in the coming months.
MADRID | By Tania Suárez | Ana Botín will now be part of a first level team in David Cameron’s government, which will stand up for Brand London as international financial centre. The Prime Minister has chosen the Spanish businesswoman after her harsh speech on “the culture of pessimism” in Britain.
The Corner Team | Spanish Telefónica is in talks to become the main shareholder of Telco, Telecom Italia’s holding company, which is struggling with a millionaire debt and a fiercely competitive market, Dow Jones reports. The proposal under discussion would have Telefónica increasing its stake to 70% before next week.
MADRID | By Francisco López | The landslide victory of Angela Merkel in the German elections has had a vast echo in the media around the world and yet a relatively small impact on the markets, which had already seen the Chancellor’s triumph coming and opted for collecting profits after several days of strong gains.
LONDON | By Michael Gavin at Barclays | Today, we mainly remember the ‘Greenspan conundrum’ as a puzzle about the level of US interest rates in the several years leading up to the 2007-08 financial crisis. But the original conundrum was as much about the insensitivity of long-term interest rates to the tightening of monetary that began in mid-2004 as it was about the level of interest rates.